Adam Mayes added to FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List

Adam Mayes is seen with girls who appear to be Adrienne Bain (center), 14, whose body was found buried on property where Mayes was staying, and Alexandria Bain, 12. The picture was posted 11 months ago on the Facebook page of Paco Rodrigass, a name police say Mayes uses as an alias.

Adam Mayes

Teresa Mayes

GUNTOWN, Miss. -- Murder charges were filed Wednesday against the fugitive suspected of killing a Tennessee woman and her teenage daughter, then fleeing with her two younger daughters.

Adam Mayes, 35, along with his wife, Teresa Mayes, 31, both of Guntown, now face first-degree murder charges in Tennessee as well as the previously filed charges of especially aggravated kidnapping of the two found dead and the two girls still missing, 12-year-old Alexandria Bain and 8-year-old Kyliyah Bain.

And a federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution was added against Adam Mayes to give the FBI jurisdiction in the case.

The new charges were announced during a news conference here Wednesday afternoon, at which authorities from Mississippi and Tennessee also said Adam Mayes has been added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List and that reward money for Mayes' capture is up to $175,000. The reward includes $15,000 from Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam.

At Wednesday's news conference, law enforcement officials appealed to the public for information to help them locate Adam Mayes and, hopefully, find the missing girls safe. Teresa Mayes is being held in Hardeman County, Tenn.

Josie Tate, Teresa Mayes' mother, told The Associated Press that Mayes thought he might be the girls' father and it caused trouble in the marriage to her daughter.

"She was tired of him doting on those two little girls that he claimed were his," Tate said in an exclusive phone interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The missing girls' mother, Jo Ann Bain of Whiteville in Hardeman County, and her eldest daughter, Adrienne Bain, 14, have been identified as the two bodies found last weekend in the backyard of an Alpine community home here occupied by Adam and Teresa Mayes.

Bain, 31, and her three children were reported missing April 27 by Bain's husband, and her vehicle was later found abandoned. Federal search warrants executed Friday led to the two bodies buried behind the Alpine home rented by Mayes' parents.

Bain's husband "remains distraught, as anyone would be in his situation," said Aaron T. Ford, agent-in-charge of the FBI Memphis Division.

Ford said the unlawful flight charge against the missing Mayes, described as a "family friend" to the Bains, would widen the net to find him.

"This will allow nationwide implementation of the full resources of the federal government," Ford said. "I assure you that every lead will be followed; we will leave no stone unturned."

Officials said the appeal for public help and the release of a toll-free number -- 1 (800) TBI-TIPS -- was not an indication of a draw-down in the Mississippi search.

"One of or most powerful weapons in law enforcement is you, the public," Ford said.

Involved regionally in the hunt for Mayes and the two girls are elements of the FBI, TBI and Mississippi Bureaus of Investigation and Narcotics, U.S. Marshals Service, the sheriff's departments of DeSoto, Union, Pontotoc and Lee counties in Mississippi and Hardeman in West Tennessee, as well as the Mississippi Highway Patrol.

"I can tell you that while our efforts focus here in Union County, he could be heading anywhere," the FBI's chief in Mississippi, Daniel McMullen, said in Guntown as a massive search continued in the area about 15 miles northeast of Tupelo. "He has connections in several states, including Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Arizona."

Residents of Union County here are jittery, but Sheriff Jimmy Edwards sought to reassure "that people are safe; we'll continue to see they remain safe." He said the county is not crime-ridden: "It's about the same as anywhere else around here."

Among the false alarms that stirred rumors was the arrest Wednesday of a man said to be a resident across the road from where the bodies were found. The sheriff said Richard Norman was picked up "on an outstanding warrant. It's not related to the Mayes case."

In West Tennessee on Tuesday evening, meanwhile, hundreds of adults, teens and children came from throughout West and Central Tennessee and North Mississippi for a prayer vigil at Bolivar Dixie Youth Park, where the two oldest Bain girls played softball.

Many of the mourners said the kidnappings have shaken their small-town, tight-knit communities, from Whiteville to Corinth, Miss.

Stephanie Bodiford, of Middleton, Tenn., said her son was in the same class at Central High School in Bolivar as Adrienne Bain.

Bodiford said her children have been distraught in the days since the disappearance of Bain and her daughters.

"We live in such a sheltered community," Bodiford said. "They just don't understand. They don't understand bad."

Megan Ervin said she played with Adrienne Bain on the same softball team last year. She described Adrienne as a good player who enjoyed softball.

"She was real nice but she was real shy," Ervin said.

Ervin, 16, said she and her friends have been shaken by the kidnapping and deaths.

She also said Mayes spent time at the park. He would often come see the Bain girls play, she said. Megan Ervin's mother, Pam, said she also saw Mayes hanging out at the park.

"It's just shocking. It could have been any of us, really, because he was always here and everybody saw him," Megan said. "He was around all these kids all the time."